An ad hoc committee of experts will convene to conduct a consensus study of the costs of child poverty in the United States and the effectiveness of current efforts aimed at reducing poverty. The committee will review available high-quality research on current programs, with emphasis on evaluations that include benefit-cost analysis. Based on these analyses the committee will make recommendations for federal investment aimed at reducing the number of children living in poverty in the United States by half within 10 years. The committee will address five specific charges:

1. Briefly review and synthesize the available research on the macro- and micro-economic, health, and social costs of child poverty, with attention to linkages between child poverty and health, education, employment, crime, and child well-being.

2. Briefly assess current international, federal, state, and local efforts to reduce child poverty. The committee will provide an analysis of the poverty-reducing effects of existing major assistance programs directed at children and families in the United States, as well as relevant programs developed in other industrialized countries, such as the United Kingdom, Canada, and Ireland.

3. Identify policies and programs with the potential to help reduce child poverty and deep poverty (measured using the SPM) by 50 percent within 10 years of the implementation of the policy approach.

4. For the programs the committee identifies as having strong potential to reduce child poverty, the committee will provide analysis in a format that will allow federal policy makers to identify and assess potential combinations of policy investments that can best meet their policy objectives.

5. Identify key, high-priority research gaps the filling of which would significantly advance the knowledge base for developing policies to reduce child poverty in the United States and assessing their impacts.